


Flotsam and Jetsam

by Adina



Series: The House That Jack Built [2]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-27 02:25:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1711565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adina/pseuds/Adina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack discovers that he can't just take up where he left off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flotsam and Jetsam

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to <http://adina-atl.livejournal.com/130663.html> on August 17, 2008.

The Hub was quiet, dark, familiar.

Comforting.

Ianto was downstairs cleaning up the mess John made, and that was comforting too, though it would be more comforting if he came up to distract Jack from his thoughts. John. Grey. John sneering that he had found Grey. A year of his life that existed on no one's calendar but his own and Martha's. The Doctor. The Doctor weeping over the Master like he _mattered_.

With an oath that wouldn't be used on Earth for another millennium, he pulled the computer keyboard towards him. In this timeline he'd only been gone a month, but the moronic email from UNIT would still have built up. Seeing how many inappropriate comments he could put in his replies before they complained would distract him nicely without being actual work.

Zero unread messages.

That wasn't possible. UNIT never sent less than four messages in a day, and the tizzy they would have been in after the Rift opened should have generated more.

"You should talk to Tosh about password security, sir," Ianto said blandly from the doorway, hands casually tucked into his trouser pockets. His voice wasn't a surprise--Jack couldn't not notice someone approaching him anymore, not even in the Hub, not even Ianto. "In fact you have a meeting with her scheduled for tomorrow morning for just that purpose."

Jack gave him his best boss-to-subordinate glower. "Do I."

Ianto gazed back, the perfect, detached assistant. "You scheduled it. Sir."

Jack broke eye contact to pull up his sent mail. Two messages had been sent in the last five minutes, one a text to Ianto's mobile, the other an email to Tosh.

> `From: Harkness, Jack`  
> `To: Tosh`  
> `Subject: Password security`  
> 
> 
> `Ianto tells me I need a refresher course on protecting my password. Can we meet at 10 tomorrow morning to discuss it? You know how he nags me.`
> 
> `Jack`

He looked up at an openly smug Ianto. "Cute."

Ianto smiled one of those smiles that made Jack want to fuck him up against the nearest wall. "You had fifteen seconds to abort the automatic send after you logged in, sir. You didn't make it." His voice was still cool; comfort sex was not in Jack's immediate future.

"Thank you for riding herd on things while I was away," he said as evenly--and sincerely--as he could. "Anything in there I should know about?"

"Not really, sir."

"Between you and Gwen it sounds like you have everything under control without me." It hurt, actually. He had come back for Torchwood, for Ianto, and now he was surplus to either's requirements.

Ianto half sat on his desk, fixing him with a deliberately calm eye. "We managed to keep anyone outside Torchwood Three from learning of your disappearance. Otherwise you would most likely have come back to find Major Smythe or some other fine UNIT officer occupying this office."

"This is Torchwood," he snapped. "Not part of UNIT."

"UNIT or that guy from Torchwood Two," Ianto snapped back, real anger showing in his voice at last. "Tosh and Owen aren't command types. Gwen has no experience. And I'm just the teaboy!" He took a deep breath and visibly re-donned his bland mask. "Since even random blowfish are now in the know, I doubt we could have kept your secret much longer."

A year ago (a month ago) he would have leered and offered to make it up to him. Even now the urge to touch Ianto's knee, so temptingly close, to take his foot in Jack's lap and run his hands up his ankle under the smooth wool of his trousers was almost more than he could bear. "I'm sorry. I'm here now and I'm not leaving." Not in Ianto's lifetime, at least.

"I wish I could believe that." Ianto looked down, studying the tip of his shoe. "I'm glad you're back," he added more softly.

"So am I."

***

At ten o'clock the next morning Jack was in the middle of Cardiff Bay; Ianto couldn't be allowed to have his way in everything, after all. Besides, he hadn't been out to Flat Holm in--in a month, and they might need him.

Helen, dependable Helen. She was waiting for him at the quay like she always did even when he hadn't phoned ahead to warn her. He jumped for the quay as soon as the boat slowed, impatient with a normal docking, and waved the boat off. Helen shook her head at the exhibition like she always did.

"You should have told me you were back," she scolded. "How was your trip?" 

Years as a conman taught him how to pretend he knew what was going on. "Tedious. Long. Boring. I missed your shining face." Flirt, switch the subject, ask them questions about themselves. "So how were things here?"

"Not a lot different." She gave him a sidelong look. "Ianto told you about Elizabeth?"

Ianto. A ball of ice lodged in his stomach. He and Ianto were going to have a long talk about _not really._ "Not--in any detail," he admitted.

She nodded, seeming satisfied with the answer. "It was quiet. Ianto sat with her until the end." So Elizabeth was dead, not that that was any surprise. Helen approved of Ianto, which was also to be expected. Ianto's presence here, on Flat Holm, that he had never wanted. "Too bad Ianto didn't come with you. Trent will be disappointed."

This got worse and worse. "Trent?"

She laughed. "You really need to read your email more; I know Ianto copied you on that one." He shrugged and gave a contrite smile he knew she wouldn't buy for a minute. "He's helping Ianto make a garden in the centre courtyard." The courtyard was actually a concealed gun emplacement, open to the sky but recessed below ground level. Once it would have been covered with camouflage netting and if it ever grew to be a problem it could be again. Helen shook her head, smiling. "When I say 'helping' I mean Trent's doing all the work but Ianto provides broad guidelines. He's--it's really bringing him out of his shell, I think. He's still eager to please Ianto, of course, but he has to think independently to figure out _how_."

"Clever."

"Clever _and_ cute." She said it like it was the punch line of an old joke.

***

Ianto was waiting for him on the dock when he got back, hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind. It made him look a little forlorn.

"You should have come with me," Jack said as soon as the engine was shut down and he could be heard without shouting. "Trent actually asked after you." He jumped down and Ianto grabbed his arm as if to steady his landing.

"Did he?" Ianto sounded pleased and gratified, as well he should. It was the first spontaneous thing Trent had said in over a year except for his perennial offers to 'play.'

Jack nodded, making no effort to reclaim his arm from Ianto. "In a slightly creepy fashion, but yes."

"We take our progress where we can, sir," Ianto said, turning to walk back to the Plass, hand still resting on Jack's arm. "I usually go over on Monday, with the week's supplies." He put a question in that, asking permission, perhaps.

"What do the rest of the team think of...this?" What did Ianto think of it?

"They never question why my regular supply run now takes all morning as long as I make fresh coffee before I leave." If there was bitterness in that it was well hidden.

Jack had forgotten how good Ianto was at keeping secrets. Of course he hadn't told them. "Supply runs are tedious things: buying paperclips, staples, copier paper--"

"Body bags," Ianto interjected dryly.

"--pterodactyl food, weevil chow--"

"Bin liners." Ianto stopped him with a light pressure on his captive arm. Jack obediently came to a halt; Ianto turned to face him, his expression serious, even sombre. Jack steeled himself for questions about Flat Holm, for criticism, even anger. Ianto gazed at him silently for a long moment before nodding. "You haven't changed your password. You'll find you rescheduled your meeting with Tosh for three."

***

> `From: admin`  
> `To: Ianto, Jack`  
> `Subject: INSTANT MESSENGER TRANSCRIPT`
> 
> `JACK: BIc0.4D,Hk.4m`  
> `JACK: Happy?`  
> `IANTO: Except for the part about not telling anyone, yes.`  
> `JACK: Fuck you, Ianto Jones.`  
> `IANTO: You have to buy me dinner first.`  
> `IANTO: Nice use of naught, stop, for.`  
> `IANTO: Morbid, though.`

***

There was a routine even in Torchwood, a rhythm to the chaos, stretches of tedium and paperwork interrupted by weevil sightings, crash-landing spaceships, and Ianto's coffee.

The first time Ianto brought Jack a cup of coffee Jack's hands shook when he picked it up. He looked up to see Ianto watching him with a quizzical look. He burned his mouth on the first sip, but it was worth the pain. He wanted to tell Ianto of the joy of controlling his own food and drink but Ianto wouldn't understand, not without history Jack wasn't ready to burden him with. "I visited a planet once where coffee was a sacrament reserved for the high priests," he said instead, and even he wasn't sure anymore if he was lying. "Beautiful, elaborate ceremony, but the coffee was terrible. Bitter and burnt."

"They probably didn't wash the pot often enough," Ianto said evenly. "That's the usual cause."

"I think they had a taboo against it." He took another sip and it was perfect. "Your coffee would spark a religious revolution, the Caffeinated Reformation."

"I'm glad you approve," Ianto said. A smile was playing about the corners of his mouth. "Was there anything else, sir?"

***

The weevil was spotted in a car park in the city centre. Jack took Ianto, of course. It wasn't a date, but none of the rest of the team shared his enthusiasm for the task, and a little adrenaline did wonders for anyone's libido.

"What is it with weevils and car parks?" Jack asked, checking yet another empty level.

"Fish and chips wrappers in the rubbish bins," Ianto said absently, still bent over the Rift-energy detector. "Draws them like catnip."

That was new, as was Ianto's easy confidence. Unless he was winding Jack up. "Really?"

Ianto looked up from the detector. "Really," he said with a solemn nod.

***

The Rift had taken the spaceship from orbit or deep space and released it deep in the Earth's gravity well. The spaceship was never meant for re-entry and mostly burned up in the atmosphere. The crew were dead, two pitiful charred bodies, but he recognized the species. "Laskans. Nice people: friendly, harmless. Inordinately fond of figs. Never figured that one out."

***

Then there was a thwarted burglary turned homicide that the police labelled odd: one burglar stabbed and the other thrown through a window, no weapon sharper than a cricket bat to be found. Personally Jack thought the police were trying to pawn off an awkward case on anyone who would take it, but it was an excuse to get Tosh out of the Hub. She was getting antsy over next week and Owen was threatening to sedate her. Even Ianto was looking put upon every time she mentioned Tommy, and harassing Ianto was Jack's prerogative.

It wasn't so simple.

Interrogating Beth was hard: he knew too well what someone in his position could do, spent too much time (a year) in hers. Ianto taking the piss out of him helped, not that he would ever admit it. After it was all over and Beth frozen awaiting a spring that would never come, he could still hear her screams (his screams), pleading, weeping. He quietly escaped to the lavatory and threw up.

There was something meditative about staring at the tiles afterwards, slumped on the floor against the wall. The tiles looked straight from a distance, as a group, but closer examination showed their flaws: this one crooked, that one with a corner sunk in, the next one cracked. He traced a crooked line up the wall to the ceiling, looking down again to find Ianto crouching in front of him, balanced on the balls of his feet. Jack flinched; no one was supposed to be able to sneak up on him.

Ianto pretended not to notice. "Here." He held out a mug, took Jack's hands and wrapped them around it. It was warm, almost too hot to hold. He clutched it tighter and buried his face in the steam.

"Cream?" He never took cream in his coffee.

Ianto pivoted without standing up, not looking at Jack as he sat back against the wall beside Jack. His shoulder was close enough that Jack could feel his body heat. "Black coffee and bile are not the best combination."

Nothing escaped Ianto.

"Do you still think I'm a monster?" he found himself asking.

Ianto didn't answer immediately, which was oddly reassuring. Gwen would have said _Of course not!_ and it would have meant nothing. Ianto thought about his answer. "Gwen plays a very good good cop," he said obliquely. "Because she thinks she is. Good, I mean."

Gwen had played good cop to his bad cop. Did that make Jack a good bad cop or a bad bad cop, and was a good bad cop better or worse at it than a bad bad cop? "And me?"

"Do you think you're a monster?"

Ianto wasn't scared of him. Beth had been. "I asked you first!"

Ianto rolled his eyes, but the lights flickered before he could say anything. Jack was on his feet before the alarms sounded, abandoning the un-tasted coffee on the floor.

"Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?" he demanded.

***

When it was all over (again) Jack had died a slow death (penance) in the back of the SUV. If it had been anyone but Gwen driving he would have asked them to kill him quickly, but he couldn't ask that of her, not Gwen. Waking up in Ianto's arms was almost worth the pain of clawing his way back to life. Ianto was prettier than Saxon, prettier even than Tish.

Later Ianto came after him with the disconnected CB antenna in his hands, the light of battle in his eyes. Jack retreated from the Hub centre: a wrathful Ianto was more fun without an audience to inhibit him.

"Did you have to use duct tape, Jack?" Ianto demanded when he cornered him at the entrance to the vaults. "It left the SUV sticky, disconcertingly so."

"I thought you liked sticky," Jack said with a leer and a broad smile. Ianto rolled his eyes, twitching the antenna at his side.

"In toffee apples, yes. On autos, not so much."

"In captains?" he asked softly, seductively, just to see Ianto get riled.

The antenna twitched again and he wondered if he could let Ianto hit him even in jest. It wouldn't hurt, not really, but Jack was a little afraid of his own reaction. Ianto wouldn't hurt him, he knew that, but Jack's memories were a minefield. Ianto lifted the antenna threateningly and Jack took a steadying breath.

"Oi!" Owen barged past, knocking Ianto aside with a shoulder check. "Get a room; some of us are trying to work here."

Jack started to draw Ianto into the archives, but shouting from the Hub interrupted.

***

When it was all over (third time's the charm) Jack had had to shoot Beth. She had tried to make it as easy on them as she could, holding Gwen hostage and shouting unconvincing threats and insults to the human species, but the choice and ultimately the responsibility was his. Ianto arranged to freeze her body, with Tosh monitoring to ensure that it was dead and stayed dead. Afterwards he disappeared, leaving when Tosh and Owen did.

The next few days were busy but almost boring, cleaning up the mess the four sleeper agents made, distributing lies, half-truths, and Retcon where each was most appropriate. Ianto remained in the Hub, fielding reports, coordinating cover stories, giving the rest of the team assignments that even Owen accepted with no more grumbling than Jack usually got. Jack took his assignments without comment, wondering if Ianto realized the role he was playing.

Afterwards Jack sent them home for the weekend, which worked about as well as it ever did. Tosh showed up late morning on Saturday 'just to check a program' and stayed to mutter imprecations at her monitor for the next five hours. Owen came in later, harassed Tosh until it was clear she wasn't paying attention, then started dissecting an alien the size and general shape of an Alsatian that had fallen through the Rift already dead. Jack was pretty sure it was non-sentient, but wanted to know for sure in case any more fell through and survived.

Jack didn't even stop to find out why Gwen thought she was there, just bundling her out the door and back to Rhys.

Ianto appeared once on Saturday to feed Myfanwy, give Tosh coffee, and exchange insults with Owen before leaving again. On Sunday he only called, asking Jack to feed Myfanwy. "I will see you tomorrow afternoon, then," Ianto said as he disconnected.

Tomorrow. Monday. Flat Holm. Right. Supplies, yes. Forty-eight hours without Ianto.

No.

***

Seventeen patients and nine staff members required a tremendous amount of _stuff_. Jack had ordered the supplies, but he had never seen them collected in one place, not since they'd set Evan up with the boat and hired him for ferry service and supply runs. Jack watched Ianto supervise loading the boat and then slipped aboard while Ianto wasn't watching. Evan started to yell at the intrusion but stopped when he recognized Jack; Jack just grinned and held a finger to his lips, tucking himself behind a crate of loo paper.

Jack jumped down to the quay at Flat Holm and walked silently up behind Ianto.

"Jack." Ianto turned, composure as firmly in place as if greeting Jack in the Hub.

Two could play that game. "Ianto."

"If you could see about getting the overhead doors open, I'll see to the unloading."

And that was that. Helen appeared and helped him get the bulky overhead door open, then she, Ianto, Jack, and Evan moved everything into the storage area beyond. Jack kept back two rucksacks he'd brought on board himself. Evan took off as soon as the boat was empty.

"Coming?" Helen asked, nodding to the storage area and the tunnel connecting it to the rest of the complex. "Or are you going to take the long way around?"

"Actually, Ianto and I have something to see to on the other side of the island," Jack said, lifting one of the rucksacks.

"Jack." Only Ianto could make his name sound like 'sir' whilst being a reproof at the same time. Jack raised his eyebrows in return. "Helen, if you'll excuse us for a moment?" Ianto asked.

Helen seemed amused at them. "Of course." She moved out of earshot and began organizing the supplies.

"This 'thing'," Ianto demanded. "Does it pose a threat to these people?"

"What?" Ianto didn't think-- "No!" Ianto only looked at him. "No," Jack repeated. "I just thought--a picnic? Sit in the sun, watch the waves, eat, talk--" Not have sex, tempting as the thought was.

"A--date," Ianto almost stammered, pink around his collar.

"I did promise you one," Jack said softly.

"I'd--like that," Ianto said. His accent had deepened, softened. Jack could have fallen to his knees and worshipped at the altar of his Welsh vowels.

"Great! Let's go."

Of course it wasn't that easy. "I promised Trent--I bought plants at the garden centre--"

There was no shifting Ianto's sense of responsibility, not and leave him Ianto. "Afterwards?"

That earned him a true smile. "With three of us it shouldn't take long."

***

Wrestling twenty-kilo bags of potting soil was not Jack's idea of a date, he decided two hours later, but it was almost worth it to see Ianto in jeans again, sleeves rolled up with dirt up to his elbows. The precise way he placed each plant, the tight stretch of fabric over his arse as he bent down, the cool, dry tone of his voice as he explained plant care, all were worth the price of admission.

Trent was less amusing, of course, but Jack watched him just as carefully, if for different reasons. He wasn't sure who to dance attendance on, Jack or Ianto, so he sort of vibrated between them. The confusion was probably good for him, but Jack wished he had a way to monitor his blood pressure and stress hormones. He didn't want Trent going catatonic again; Ianto would never forgive himself.

When Ianto started explaining watering schedules, Jack snuck away to give Trent the chance to attend without distraction. He found Helen and got the weekly updates from her: the progress of her patients, staffing issues, a nosy reporter.

"Staying for lunch?" she asked at last.

Jack shook his head. "I packed a lunch; we still need to check on the southern point." He would have Ianto alone, at least for a little while.

"Oh, right." She smiled, maybe a little too knowingly. "I assume the delay hasn't been--" She visibly rejected the word 'dangerous.' "--isn't going to cause a problem."

"Nah." He grinned. "Ianto has more sense than that."

She snorted and swatted at his arm without connecting. "Ianto has more sense in his little finger than you have in your entire body, Captain Harkness!"

"Well, yes, that's why I hired him. That and the suits."

She snorted again. "Whatever you're paying that poor boy, it isn't enough." Glancing at her watch, she turned serious. "Do I need to keep the residents away from--whatever--on the point?"

"No." He shook his head, a little ashamed at lying to her. "No danger."

***

Flat Holm wasn't a large island and five minutes' walk brought them to a rocky cove where three metre high bluffs sheltered them from the wind while concentrating what sunshine Wales got. Ianto watched in evident bemusement as Jack unloaded the rucksacks, laying out the food on a blanket.

"You...bought one of everything that looked edible?" he asked as apples, cheese, salami, and pâté joined crisps, croissants (plain and chocolate), biscuits, and baguettes on the blanket. 

They were all things he hadn't tasted in a year. He took an apple and bit into it to avoid having to say anything. The apple was crisp and cold, crunching under his teeth, releasing sweet juice that quenched a thirst he didn't know he had. The apple was small and even savouring every mouthful he finished it off in a few bites. He opened his eyes, not sure when he closed them, to find Ianto watching him with a mischievous smile.

"I've never seen someone make love to an apple before, not even you," Ianto said, leaning over to wipe a drop of juice from the corner of Jack's mouth with one finger. Jack took a sharp breath at the touch, held it as Ianto brought his hand back and licked his finger clean. He was so beautiful, so sexy.

"It's been a while." A while since he ate anything worth eating, a while since he'd been touched.

Ianto hesitated a long moment. "I thought the TARDIS would be better stocked." For all his voice or expression showed, he might have been discussing the shortage of double-aught sutures in the medical bay.

Jack's time in the TARDIS could be measured in hours: even she couldn't stand to be around him, fleeing to the end of time to be rid of him. The Doctor, TARDIS, Master. _Freak!_ He was unnatural, a fact in an ocean of possibilities, an unmoving clod on the dance floor of life. _Perversion!_ He wasn't for anything, no use except to die for the Doctor's noble causes or the Master's amusement.

"Jack?"

Even his entertainment value had palled after a while--he had been left chained and ignored for months when the Master couldn't even be bothered to kill him, too disgusted--

"Jack!"

His name was like a slap. He focused on Ianto, on his bland expression that could be hiding anything, love or hate, revulsion or lust. Ianto reached out slowly, brushing his fingers over Jack's cheek, the touch almost too light to feel.

"How can you bear to look at me?" Jack demanded.

The corners of Ianto's mouth spread in a slow smile. "Looking is not the problem." The smile twisted a little bit. "You're talking to the man who kept looking at Lisa after she turned into a cybernetic killing machine, after all." His hand ghosted down Jack's neck, stopping at the pulse point, and then continued to come to rest Jack's chest. Jack felt his heart and breathing calm under Ianto's touch. It shouldn't help, knowing that he was less repellent than a cyberman, but it did.

The sun was warm, the air clean and scented with the sea. Ianto smiled at him, taking his hand away. "Eat," he said.

***

A week later he was sending a soldier to his death.

Tosh and Tommy left the Hub first, back to her flat for one night of love before sending a soldier into battle. Gwen and Owen left next, not together Jack was relieved to notice. Ianto didn't leave with them.

Jack listened for the cog door as he wrote up his notes on Tommy. Instead he heard an almost-noiseless tread on the steps.

"This time tomorrow he'll be back in 1918," he told the folder on his desk, resisting the urge, the need, to turn and look at Ianto.

"In his own time," Ianto said. Tommy's own time, yes: for all of three weeks until his own people shot him. Ianto--Jack wouldn't put it past Ianto to have found that out. "Would you go back to yours? If you could?"

When did Ianto imagine his own time was? The 51st century? He could have had the Doctor drop him there, in the Boeshane Peninsula even, but then what? See his mother, explain to her how her son was now three times her age and immortal? "Why, would you miss me?" he asked, making a joke out of it.

It was Ianto's cue to comment about how much easier the filing would be without him or about the reduction in coffee expense. His simple "Yup," shook Jack to the core.

Jack let his mouth fly on autopilot while the word _yup_ echoed through his brain. Ianto would miss him, that was no surprise, not with how angry he'd been at Jack's leaving with the Doctor. Admitting it--admitting it so easily--that was another matter.

"I...uh...know that you get lonely." Ianto sat on the edge of his desk, so close, so very close. 

He had to return at least a measure of Ianto's honesty. "Going home wouldn't fix that." He looked up at Ianto and then back down at the papers before raising his gaze to Ianto's shoulder, not quite meeting his eyes. "Being here I've seen things I never dreamt I'd see. Loved people I never would have known if I'd just...stayed where I was." He would never have met the Doctor, Rose, Ianto. He would never died so many times, never have fallen into the Master's power. He forced himself to look Ianto fully in the face, all defences gone. "And I wouldn't change that for the world."

And then Ianto was kissing him, hands on each side of his head, holding him still as Ianto plundered his mouth. Jack lifted his hands to Ianto's shoulders but left them lying loose there, content to let Ianto take control. Ianto would take care of him.

The intensity slackened but Ianto didn't pull back, lips lightly touching Jack's as he gave them both time to breathe. After a timeless moment Ianto licked the corner of Jack's mouth and drew away. He searched Jack's face, for what Jack didn't know, before standing up and drawing Jack to his feet.

"Your room," Ianto said. It was neither question nor demand but Jack nodded anyway.

At the bottom of the ladder Ianto turned away from Jack to get undressed, one of his odder and more endearing habits. He was uninhibited enough once naked, and he took positive delight in watching--helping or hindering--Jack's own disrobing, but he preferred the illusion of privacy for his own. Jack admired the minute shifts in Ianto's shoulder muscles as Ianto worked the buttons on his shirt, before belatedly remembering to undo his own. Ianto finished undressing first, of course, turning back to face Jack gloriously naked while Jack had only removed boots, braces, and his shirt.

"Shall I help you with that?" Ianto said, stepping forward to lift the hem of Jack's undershirt. Jack raised his arms and Ianto lifted the shirt, fingers brushing against Jack's ribs. Jack shuddered, breath hitching, at the touch, stumbling backwards as soon as he could free his arms from the shirt. The cold wall at his back shocked him into stillness--it was cold masonry, not warm metal; motionless, not thrumming with the engines' power.

"Jack?" And that was Ianto, not--anyone else. 

Jack took a step forward, two, until he was standing within arm's reach of Ianto. Moving slowly, giving him time to dodge, Ianto circled his shoulders, drawing him forward the last few inches until he was resting against Ianto's chest. It was gentle, oh so gentle, and Jack hated it, hated feeling so fragile. The last time they had been down here Ianto had tied Jack to the bed, teased him past the point of coherence, and then fucked him slowly and maddeningly as he begged for more, harder, faster. Jack hated the M--Saxon for taking that from him.

Ianto lowered his arms, tucking his hands into the back of the waistband of Jack's trousers, fingers curved against his arse. Jack drew back from him far enough to give himself room to unbuckle his belt and unbutton his trousers, Ianto's breath catching at each 'accidental' brush of Jack's hands against Ianto's cock. Ianto slid his hands around Jack's hips, peeling his trousers down to puddle around Jack's ankles. Ianto tugged him out of the pile of cloth and over to the bed.

Jack watched with somewhat bemused interest as Ianto touched Jack's body with hands and mouth. It felt...good...but distant, sex seen through a sheet of tempered glass, happening to someone else. His body seemed responsive enough without him, nothing to disappoint Ianto, but he really should be doing something in return, he thought, only he had forgotten what to do with his hands. They weren't his anymore--nothing was his.

Ianto was good at this, he decided, naturally talented at sex. The thing with his thumbs, touching _there_ and _there_ , that Jack had taught him, 21st century knowledge of sexual anatomy being what it was, but using his tongue like that, oh that was pure Ianto. Clever Ianto. Beautiful Ianto.

Jack's body was panting, moaning as Ianto drew it close to its first orgasm in--in far too long. He wanted to feel it, he realized suddenly, he wanted to feel what Ianto was doing to him. He battered at the glass that separated them and it cracked, just a tiny crack. He felt a shiver of pain, a shiver of fear: he knew what was locked behind the glass, but it would be worth it to feel Ianto's hands, to feel his body pressed against Jack's. He kept beating on the glass, felt the crack widen, _felt_ his impending orgasm. He was two people, one shuddering as Ianto held him on the edge of coming, one watching, throwing himself against his cell door, desperate to get out.

And then Ianto tipped him gently, firmly over the edge. His orgasm hit with the force of a year's denial, shattering the glass, and it hurt and it was wonderful. He was clutching at Ianto, head buried against his chest, and he could feel everything. He could taste the salt on Ianto's skin, smell his own come mixed with Ianto's arousal. He was home. Safe.

***

Ianto took Jack home to throw up in Ianto's loo after the space whale died; it was at least warmer and better smelling than the one at the Hub. Afterwards Jack stayed on the floor, back resting against the tub, feet pushed against the wall. Ianto slid to the floor opposite him, feet against the tub next to Jack's hip.

"I wanted to save it," Jack said softly.

"I know," Ianto said back, his voice equally soft. "Imprisoned, chained, and drugged." The last four words might have been said to himself; his eyes looked inward. Someone--Gwen? Tosh?--must have repeated Jack's words to him. He refocused on Jack after only a moment, gave a sad smile. 

Jack leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling. "Welcome to planet Earth."


End file.
